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Comment by motoboi | Hacker News Reader

Could you elaborate on what is so weird on that molecule?

It is weird because it is present in many "mundane" plants and in the human organism, allegedly released at the time of death. It lasts 10 minutes which is strange for a psychedelic substance, which after the experience you can go back as Terrence said "answering phonecalls". Apparently the human body knows perfectly well how to metabolize it completely without any taxing effects.

From my personal experience in psychedelics, all of them, LSD, mushrooms and so forth, the user still maintains a reference point to reality around him however weird it might look. With DMT, the whole content of present reality disappears and you are seemingly transported in a completely different reality booming with alien intelligence (described by DMT users as self transforming machine elves) that purportedly is also very happy to see you "broken through". Users also report an incredible amount of information being transmitted to them, albeit completely indescribable by present human language and concepts and find themselves being under a dome-like structure (called the "DMT Dome").

From what I know, these effects are only present if you follow a specific dosage and no less than that.

Another strange fact is that while all other psychedelics are boundary dissolving substances with your ego first to get booted, with DMT you apparently "maintain" your present self throughout the trip.

This is what the "Death by astonishment" quote of the same author, refers to.

Ah, the white light at the end, the flow of knowledge, being close to the all-knowing and other statements as described by those who had near-death-experiences. This seems logical and is quite fascinating. Thanks for describing it in detail.

There are several parallels depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. Reports of feeling accepted and loved, and the "tone" sound in the beginning which seems to me really similar with the one you hear when you astrally project out of your body.

But we are fast getting out of HN accepted topics of discussion so.. :-)

Ultimately one should (not must) explore these things on his/her own instead of reading it on the web. All this quickly degenerates to entertainment if one only reads about them online.

I don't think I'd be able to handle an experience like that. Especially if it feels real and not dream-like.

Well, apparently we will all at some point :-)

Have you actually taken (non-endogenous) DMT and witnessed said alien intelligences with your own eyes?

DMT no. These are all coming from reports (and from Terrence himself) which I have no problem believing since I've witnessed my fair share of weird shit in general.

I've only done my share of LSD in the past, which by comparison, seems quite tame and merely "psychological" than DMT.

I wonder if you would consider it heretical to question whether and how well Terrence can differentiate between what he does know and what he does not actually know?

For example, you used a rather non-rigorous descriptor, "weird". What constitutes a weird phenomenon?

Can we subject said constituents of a weird phenomenon to the same kinds of validations we can make about known true facts, i.e. observable existent things?

He says it in a few different ways in his lectures, but he believed that the psychedelic experience is so strange and full of content that, even if aliens landed on the White House lawn and it made the biggest story in the history of news, it's still not as astonishing as human neurochemistry.

I'm not sure I agree, but I think it's good to keep this perspective in mind any time we find ourselves tempted to think of something as 'the biggest thing ever.'

Reality is really weird though.

I really keep trying to think whether aliens existing would actually radically change my life, individually. On one hand, maybe, but on the other, probably not (and this is more likely).

I feel like I already experience my existence like I am alien to everything that is not me, whether it is talking to a cat or a person or a tree, the whole thing is like 'reality blob' that I am not really sure how all of this happened, nor do I ever have any hope whatsoever of finding the answer to that question. When I wonder thoughts to myself I wonder who it is that thinks the question and who it is that responds with an answer. So many thinkings are just permutations of what has already been heard, and they form patterns and it's really weird.

It's easy to get 'used to things' and 'acclimated to things', I just feel like I have it hardwired in me to perpetually be weirded out by my own existence. Complexity doesn't even describe it, strange doesn't either, as these are all human concepts. You really just have to learn to observe with a completely blank mind. Then it's just like being in this interface that's always super weird and confusing, and it's ridiculous how some people really think they know what they are doing (like in their deepest philosophical and spiritual core, not like 'have to go to work today to feed the kids').

Sartre's Nausea and Hesse's Steppenwolf tackles this theme beautifully.

It's a psychedelic type substance similar to LSD. What he meant is that the weirdest things you can ever experience is you on acid.

I wouldn't be so quick to say the two are identical. It's different for everyone obviously but they are very different psychedelic experiences for most. DMT is VERY powerful when administered correctly.

Regardless this is a bit off topic.

Eh, I guess it's a matter of personal perspective. Anything in a hallucination is a hallucination. It's not constraint to conform to reality.

For something to be REAL and weird automatically puts it on another level.

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